


Foolish Pleasure

by severinne



Series: Twin Spires Trilogy [2]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Age Difference, Blackmail, Bondage, Character Death, Child Abuse, Daddy Issues, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Euthanasia, M/M, Mirror Universe, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-10
Updated: 2011-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-19 05:57:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Christopher Pike knows when he’s being blackmailed; what he doesn’t understand is when the terms of the arrangement started to shift beneath his feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foolish Pleasure

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reunions: Whole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/62907) by [shinychimera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera), [Yeomanrand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand). 



> Sequel to [Bold Venture](http://archiveofourown.org/works/155942), which is in turn a Mirrorverse remix of the wonderful [Reunions](http://archiveofourown.org/works/62907) by shinychimera and yeomanrand; I’m continuing this twisted variation on their original work with their blessing, for which I warmly thank you both. :)
> 
> Foolish Pleasure won the Kentucky Derby in 1975 and is famous for defeating Ruffian, “Queen of the Fillies,” in a match race battle-of-the-sexes that he won by default when Ruffian lost her lead to a broken leg.

Pike’s hand fell steady and sharp as though possessed of its own separate will, as though he had no other purpose than this. The flesh of his palm was stinging hot, but the discomfort was well worth every gasp and moan and wriggle he wrought from the young man draped so beautifully over his lap.

‘I’ve been looking forward to having you like this,’ he murmured, landing another firm smack on Leonard’s reddened ass and resting his hand there a moment, fingers digging into the rounded flesh. ‘Giving you the spanking you so soundly deserve… you naughty thing…’

He kneaded Leonard’s abused ass harder, making the lithe body in his lap flinch and arch with a loud, wrenching moan that echoed off the library’s wood-paneled walls.

‘ _Quiet_.’ He snatched his other hand away from where he had been pinning Leonard’s wrists at the small of his back, shooting a glance at the closed but unlocked door as he blindly covered Leonard’s panting mouth. ‘Can’t have your dear parents wondering what I’m doing with you in here, can we?’

Leonard murmured incoherently into the palm of his hand, squirming restlessly though he tellingly kept his hands where Pike had left them crossed at the wrist: a visible reminder of whose idea it had been to wait in the McCoys’ library while Leonard’s parents privately perused their son’s enlistment documents in the parlour down the hall. With an irritable growl, Pike laid another slap over Leonard’s bared ass.

‘Or maybe they already know about you,’ he sneered at a low hush. With Leonard’s fine trousers bunched around his thighs there was little space to spread him as wide as Pike would have liked, but he shoved a hand down between his legs anyway and quickly found his hard cock hanging helplessly beneath him. ‘Already know what a slut you are for punishment.’

He teasingly tormented Leonard’s erection, casual and proprietary, and smirked when Leonard’s head jerked away from his hand. ‘Fuck me,’ he gasped, narrowed eyes slanting back towards him. ‘Come on, do it…’

‘No.’ Pike seized his jaw, forced his head back down and rammed his fingers into his mouth to silence him. ‘This isn’t about what you want… not this time…’

Releasing Leonard’s cock, he cruelly pinched the soft skin of his inner thigh, earning a flinch and a muffled whine. Pike took up the spanking again with sharper blows that layered themselves over every inch of glowing skin bared by his hastily rucked clothing. Each impact of his open hand made Leonard melt by another tantalizing degree, drove him deeper down into his lap. The rhythmic gyration of Leonard’s body against the erection in his trousers was distracting enough, but once Leonard started suckling at the fingers gagging him Pike knew this wouldn’t last much longer. He groaned deeply, managed several more stinging slaps before his lust got the better of his need to punish the boy.

‘On your knees.’ He shoved Leonard roughly, smirking as he spilled in a tangle onto the deep pile carpet at his feet. ‘You’re going to learn who’s in charge here,’ he said darkly, tugging urgently at the fastening of his uniform pants. ‘No more talking back… only want one thing from that pretty mouth of yours…’

Leonard read his meaning immediately; wet and eager lips wrapped around him as soon as he had freed his cock from his pants. Leaning back in the library’s leather armchair, Pike wove Leonard’s long dark hair around his fingers, tugging firmly as his hips snapped upward, fucking as carelessly as he could into that obedient mouth. Leonard responded with a throaty moan that vibrated his own arousal along the length of Pike’s dick, transmitting the wanton greed that sent one of Leonard’s hands creeping down between his own legs.

‘Don’t you even _dare_ touch yourself.’ With considerable effort, Pike wrenched Leonard away from his cock, forcing his gaze. The light in his eyes was startling, like late-day sunlight piercing a secluded wood. ‘Hands behind your back, and damn well keep them there this time.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Leonard twisted his fingers together at the small of his back, shuffling restlessly on his knees to find better balance between Pike’s thighs, straining closer to his cock. His entire posture begged for it, but Pike held him off with a firm grip in his hair as he took his spit-soaked erection in his other hand.

‘This,’ he said, slapping a wet strip across Leonard’s smooth cheek with the length of his shaft, ‘is the only cock that should matter to you right now. I don’t care whether you get off or not.’ Breathing harder at the sight of the boy at his feet, he drew the head of his cock around the obscenely red curves of Leonard’s slick lips. ‘Would serve you right if I just fucked your face and left you hard and begging for it like the dirty whore you are…’

Leonard let loose a soft, keening whine as his eyes fell shut. The tongue flicking out to lap the stain of Pike’s arousal from his bruised mouth was too lascivious to resist; their moans mingled together as Pike tugged hard on his hair and plunged himself back into wet and willing heat. Their time was too short to linger over this punishment, and the liquid burn of Orion pheromones in Pike’s bloodstream was as impossible to ignore now as it had been two weeks ago in the woods beyond this cursed house. Pike stole another glimpse down at the contradiction of obediently clasped hands and compellingly wicked eyes staring boldly upward and he was already done, spilling over the low groan filling Leonard’s mouth and biting down on his own lip to hold back an answering growl of raw ecstasy.

His need temporarily sated, Pike released Leonard’s hair and dropped his palm into his lap as he straightened achingly upright in the chair. The blowjob had taken the edge off the lust that had been snarling sharper through his body these last few days, but his groin was still heavy with frustrated arousal that roared for more, that demanded Leonard’s body stripped naked and split open around him for a second round.

With a quelling squeeze at his throbbing balls, Pike threw a sour glare at the grandfather clock in the corner and reluctantly tucked himself back into his pants. The McCoys would be requesting the Commander and their son any moment, and he still had unfinished business with Leonard before they returned to the parlour. With a weary sigh, he smoothed down his uniform and cast a coldly considering look down at Leonard’s kneeling shape. His hands remained tightly tangled behind his back though the rest of his body was slumped with exhaustion, head and shoulders bowed so far forward that they nearly concealed the damning evidence spattering his splayed thighs.

‘Dirty little _slut_.’ With a snarl, he grabbed Leonard’s hair again and twisted his head back, taking in the flush of slack satisfaction on his face. ‘Did I give you permission to come?’

Red lips stretched in a soft leer. ‘You said you didn’t care one way or the other,’ he corrected in a low, lazy drawl that made the lingering heat in his groin pulse even hotter. Pike released him with a frustrated groan and pushed to his feet, deliberately knocking Leonard aside as he walked past him to the mirror over the stone fireplace. The post-orgasmic blush burning high on his cheeks was mortifying, utterly unbecoming of a future Fleet Captain.

‘That mouth of yours is going to be your downfall someday,’ he muttered. _And mine._ With a scowl, he straightened the high collar of his uniform and tried to settle the humid curl of his hair back from his heated brow, keeping a narrowed eye on Leonard’s movement behind his back.

‘I thought you liked my mouth.’ Hands crept lightly around his waist and too nearly enclosed him completely before Pike twisted away with a stern glare.

‘Don’t you start again,’ he warned shortly, casting another tight look at the grandfather clock. ‘Your parents are expecting us.’

Leonard shrugged mutely, unconcerned as he took a too-short moment with the library’s mirror. The precocious monster had at least pulled up his pants but Pike’s sharp eye could read every crease in his clothing, every disordered strand of his hair. If his sloppy grooming didn’t give them away, the damp and swollen bruising of his lips most certainly would.

‘Fine,’ he sighed indifferently, giving the long fringe of his hair a disinterested flick before turning away from the mirror. ‘C’mon, then.’

Patience snapped, Pike pulled Leonard up short with a hand locked around his upper arm as he sauntered past. ‘You don’t tell me what to do,’ he hissed, dragging Leonard close and curling his other hand warningly around his throat. His pulse fluttered panic-stricken and perfect beneath Pike’s fingertips; he caressed the heavy beat of blood beneath his skin as he leaned into his ear. ‘And you don’t get to leave this room alive unless you give me what I want.’

A faint moan escaped Leonard’s constricted throat. ‘Thought you said we didn’t have time for that,’ he breathed, squirming up against Pike’s body. He ground his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut to contain himself.

‘We don’t,’ he reminded himself firmly. ‘And you know that’s not what I’m talking about.’

He tightened his hand around Leonard’s neck, gouging his thumb behind his jaw hard enough to bruise, hard enough to snap the boy out of his hormonal spell. ‘I’ve got the hypo,’ he gasped, eyelashes fluttering beautifully against his flushed cheekbones. ‘I’ve got it, it’s in my… here, please…’

Hearing Leonard’s reckless pride dissolve into begging kicked hard at Pike’s instinct to take the boy again; he settled instead for tasting the sweat at his temples with a scraping of teeth before releasing his hold and stepping back, clenching his empty hands into fists as Leonard sagged forward and riffled quickly through the inner pockets of his jacket. As promised, his hand emerged clutching a loaded hypospray, which he promptly depleted against Pike’s jugular after a short, assenting nod of permission. He inhaled deeply as he felt the sharpest edges of his lust rubbed smooth and calm again, regaining some tentative control over these maddening circumstances.

‘Better?’ Leonard tucked the used hypo back into his jacket with only a hint of his earlier wariness, much to Pike’s irritation.

‘For now.’ Even with the antidote’s immediate clarity, the temptation to descend upon Leonard with some fresh and perverse punishment was making his fingers itch with the need to twist and bruise the younger man into obedience. Some of that desire must have shown in his face judging from Leonard’s widening eyes; with a hungry hum of anticipation, he took a step closer, another…

A perfunctory knock was all the warning Pike had before the library door tilted open on its hinges and a trim-figured middle-aged woman slipped through. The McCoys’ maidservant was a plain, unremarkable creature but the bestial intelligence in her colourless eyes stopped Pike in his tracks as he might have also done for an exceptionally well-trained wolfhound. He lowered the hand he had not realized was raised to touch Leonard and fixed her with a cool, challenging stare.

‘My Lady invites you to join her in the parlour, Commander,’ she announced crisply.

‘Thank you.’ With a final rake of his fingers through his hair, Pike followed her into the hall, Leonard silent at his heels. They turned as a group towards the parlour but the maid spun sharply and held up a frail yet admonishing hand.

‘Only the Commander’s presence has been requested, Mr. McCoy,’ she said, gazing past Pike to Leonard, a remarkable twist of deference and contempt contained in her bland stare. ‘Your father requires you in his study.’

Pike glanced curiously over his shoulder, saw the colour drain from Leonard’s high cheekbones. ‘I trust there are no outstanding concerns with young Mr. McCoy’s enlistment?’ he asked, turning back to the maid with the sort of polite, confidential air that tended to loosen servants’ tongues. Her thin lips twitched too quickly to read before she shook her head.

‘Not at all, Commander,’ she assured smoothly. ‘My Lady is delighted by Starfleet’s interest in her son.’ The omission of her Lord’s opinion did not escape Pike’s notice. ‘If you will come with me, please.’

The hint of urgency in her request was unmistakable, but Pike ignored her a moment longer in favour of his newest recruit. Leonard’s jaw was tight with tension, the sensuality pressed out of his lips into a hard line that Pike attempted to read over a farewell clasping of forearms. Any panic he may have imagined mere seconds ago looked more like grim resignation now, and Pike stifled the uneasiness at the back of his mind with the awareness that folks had very different, very obscure customs here in the South. If Dr. McCoy had business with his son, so be it.

All the same, he gave Leonard’s tensed arm a reassuring squeeze before letting go. ‘I’ll see you next month, then,’ he said breezily, following the maid back to the parlour before Leonard had even begun his climb up the stairs, assured that the five weeks until his formal enlistment would pass quickly, uneventfully.

Naturally, the boy proved him wrong.

Less than three weeks later, Pike found himself seated once again in the McCoys’ front parlour. Today, the formal room’s windows were shaded dark against the oncoming summer heat, damping the humidity with shadows that hopefully smoothed any flaws in Pike’s mask of detached concern. He sat patient and tall, ignoring the trickle of sweat beneath his uniform’s collar while Elinor McCoy made a discrete show of dabbing a single tear from the corner of her eye.

‘It was good of you to come, Commander,’ she said steadily, folding away her handkerchief and smoothing down the already flawless skirt of her austere black suit.

‘Christopher, please.’ He attempted a soft smile. ‘We’re hardly strangers, after all.’

She nodded sweetly in return. ‘Not at all,’ she agreed. ‘It’s comforting to know that you keep our family in your thoughts, even after all the time that has gone by since our houses were better acquainted.’

The barb was delicately enfolded within Elinor’s honeyed politeness, a pointed query easily denied though Pike knew better than to ignore it completely. ‘It’s not so long ago that I paid my respects to your husband and yourself,’ he replied.

‘And my son.’ Her smile didn’t fade, but Pike could hear the crisp corners on the three words. There was knowledge in her tone of a sort that Pike needed to draw out rather than risk a show of innocence.

‘And your son,’ he agreed with a nod, pausing to read the intent in her green-sparked eyes, eyes so much like Leonard’s, before saying anything further. ‘It was a pleasure to meet him at your Derby party,’ he decided, a touch brazenly. ‘You’ve raised an exceptional young man. The Imperial Fleet will be pleased to have him at their service.’

‘I’m sure you will.’

Her choice of pronoun was unmistakable in its meaning, but until she offered any explicit objection he was happy to pretend that none existed. ‘And how is young Mr. McCoy coping with his father’s passing?’ he asked solicitously, head carefully inclined in poised sympathy.

The fading of her smile and the rapid calculation in her eyes confirmed something of Pike’s suspicions, but he bided his time, took a sip from his tall, sweating glass of iced tea while Elinor composed her reply.

‘As well as can be expected,’ she said finally. ‘He is still so young, and his father fell ill so suddenly… deteriorated so quickly…’ A soft sigh passed her painted lips. ‘His moods vary. It is to be expected, I suppose.’

‘The poor child.’ Pike carefully set his glass back down. ‘And yourself? It must be so difficult to be a strong mother to him, even as you grieve for your husband.’

A flicker of some honest emotion that Pike would almost call amusement danced through her eyes. ‘I was relieved to see his suffering ended so soon, and with such dignity,’ she said levelly. ‘Besides, Commander…’ That secret humour touched her supple mouth in a charming show of teeth. ‘I do not lack for strength.’

Pike sank back in the couch as he drew a narrower gaze over Elinor’s trim figure in her silk-covered wingback chair. She wasn’t wrong; upon David’s death, this woman had become the head of the McCoy family, elevated upon all the influence of her maiden clan and stronger for having shed the weakness of an unwise husband. There was a lot of power invested in her, contained in a self-assured body only several years older than his own and blessed by a pleasing face and truly spectacular legs that glistened in impeccable silk stockings.

For a cool-headed moment, Pike weighed the merits of courting the formidable McCoy widow. Though she defied his sexual preferences towards stubborn boys and, far less frequently, pliant Orion slave girls, Elinor would make a politically smart match: sharp-witted and capable of protecting his interests on the home planet while he conquered the stars at a comfortable remove from their marriage bed.

The union would also secure his unimpeded access to Leonard; Pike hastened to master his polite expression as a heady rush of arousal struck him at the thought. The boy would become his son and legal property, his to command and discipline however he desired. Even Elinor would never dare interfere with an adoptive father’s right to teach the boy to obey and to kneel, bend and yield…

Loping footfalls on hardwood floors broke the spell growing delirious and wild in Pike’s mind; he inwardly shook it away, eyes widening as Leonard drifted into the parlour and all thoughts of the mother’s marriage potential promptly evaporated.

Like Elinor, Leonard was wearing black in mourning of his late father but his choice of casual slacks and untucked button-down shirt had none of his mother’s tidiness and sniffed instead of relief, even disdain. If the young man was in a confused or mercurial mood, it did not show in the curious and calculating look unveiled from his face as he absently shoved the messy fall of his hair away from his eyes. He returned Pike’s gaze for a boldly naked moment before drifting to a meek and silent stop to the right of his mother’s chair, his Southern breeding laid bare in the deferential bow of his head as he awaited her acknowledgement. Pike measured the mood between them as Elinor cast a thoughtful look over her only child before offering her slender hand.

‘Leonard.’

He took her hand, pressed his obedient kiss to her flawless knuckles with impressive grace. ‘Mother.’

‘You remember Commander Pike, of course,’ she continued smoothly, and Leonard looked to him again as though for the first time, neutral and polite with his mother’s permission.

‘How do you do, Sir.’ The greeting was delivered by rote, posing the question without expectation of an answer. Still, Pike offered him a smiling inclination of his head.

‘Would you like to take a seat, son?’ The appellation slipped unconsciously from his tongue, echoing perversely in the space of his own mind though Elinor showed no discomfort as she nodded her own permission.

‘Thank you, Sir.’ His eye flickered towards the open space to Pike’s left on the sofa but there were enough seating options elsewhere to make the choice unduly familiar. Instead, Leonard dropped into a carved wooden armchair near to his mother, long limbs defying the hard decorative lines of his seat with their languid spill over its frame. Nothing in Leonard’s training would have allowed for anything so callous as slouching, but his lithe body absorbed and effortlessly projected the lazy heat that swirled freely in the dark, humid parlour.

With a scolding start at his own distraction, Pike snapped his own posture upright and fixed the young man with a cool, authoritative stare. ‘On behalf of Starfleet Academy,’ he began, ‘I would like to offer our condolences on the passing of your father.’

Leonard’s full lips tightened. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he acknowledged softly, then after a wary pause: ‘Thank you.’

‘It must have come as a terrible shock to you,’ Pike added in a gentle tone that belied his sharp attention on the young man’s reactions. Beneath Leonard’s modulated control, uncertainty was flickering at the tips of his uncommonly clean fingers.

‘It was unexpected, yes.’ His chin tipped upward, subtly assertive. Beneath his well-trained deference, Leonard was proud. Pike’s eyes narrowed, his blood pumping faster in his veins.

‘Unexpected, and unfortunate.’ He leaned in companionably, hands clasped between his knees. ‘Your training at the Academy was due to begin less than two weeks from now.’

Pike held his tongue a moment, waited until his use of the past tense had clicked in Leonard’s startled eyes before continuing. ‘Under the circumstances, given the… sudden shock of your loss, the Academy will understand if you are not ready to complete your enlistment so soon.’

‘Sir, no, I–’ To his credit, Leonard bit off his outburst and made a visible effort to calm himself before answering. ‘Please, Sir, I still wish to serve the Empire.’ The slight shake in his voice was pleasing to Pike’s ear. ‘I think I would be better able to cope with my father’s death if I were put to work straight away…’

‘The Academy is not some therapeutic home for grieving little boys,’ he interrupted harshly, resisting the urge to smirk at Leonard’s visible flinch. ‘If you’re not able to control your emotions surrounding your father,’ he said with a significant glare, ‘you’re as good as useless to the Fleet’s higher authorities. The Empire has no want of recklessness without purpose.’

Satisfied for now with the rising colour in Leonard’s cheeks and the downward cast of his eyes, he turned instead to Elinor. This, he knew, would be his final concession to the woman; if she gave no protest now, he would do as he liked with the boy, his conscience clean.

‘And I would hate to remove your son from your home if you will need his comfort in the lonely days to come,’ he offered delicately, ignoring an abortive movement from Leonard’s direction in favour of reading the rapid calculation of a mother and matriarch. Her gaze slid sideways to regard her son in turn, mouth pursed thoughtfully.

‘I wouldn’t impede any opportunity to advance my son’s career,’ she said finally, returning Pike’s level stare. ‘His talents are too great to be squandered at the ends of my apron strings.’ Her humour-laced smile made it perfectly clear that Elinor had never donned an apron in her entire life.

‘I’ll do all I can to see his potential realized,’ he smiled back, a restrained show of the triumph swelling in his chest. ‘Perhaps…’ he cast a glance towards an intently watchful Leonard, ‘if I could have a few quiet words with young Mr. McCoy? A walk in the grounds might help us decide the best course of action...’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Elinor replied generously. ‘Do take your time.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, utterly sincere as he rose to his feet.

‘Not at all.’ A secret amusement still danced in her eyes as Pike clasped her proffered hand on his way past her armchair. He glanced back towards Leonard, watching closely as Elinor caught her son’s hand in turn. As he bent to press a lingering farewell kiss to her lips, Pike saw far less of a false Hamlet about the boy – rather, a more ancient prince bidding farewell to his Jocasta.

‘Do me proud, my darling one,’ she murmured, tucking an unruly lock of hair behind his ear.

‘I will, Mama.’ The smallness of his voice and the sincerity in his eyes made Leonard appear far younger than his seventeen years; Pike looked uncomfortably away, waiting for Leonard to take his leave and lead Pike formally from the parlour as a well-mannered host would any honoured guest. They maintained their pretense and their silence through the entrance foyer, out the front door and across the wraparound porch to the sweltering grounds of the McCoy estate where Pike felt more at ease drawing close to the younger man, guiding their walk through the unspoken authority in his stride.

‘I know you’re still rather young and impulsive,’ Pike began tightly, eyes fixed carefully ahead, ‘but I can’t believe how incredibly stupid you’ve been.’

Leonard stumbled to a halt. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Teeth clenched, Pike kept walking towards a safer solitude and growled softly when Leonard threw himself into his path, jaw set defiantly. Pike was sorely tempted to knock him down to the ground and rub his nose in the dirt like the misbehaving bitch he was but with the house still in view, he kept his twitching hands at his sides.

‘You killed your father,’ he snapped impatiently.

‘So?’ Despite his callous tone, Leonard glanced uncomfortably past Pike’s shoulder. ‘There’s no cure for Pyrrhoneuritis and everyone knows it’s an ugly way to die. You’d have to be some sort of monster to let your parent go through that.’

‘Obviously,’ he said dryly. ‘I suppose that’s especially true when a terminal illness happens to accelerate through the body so quickly and with so little warning.’

Leonard returned his gaze stubbornly, but Pike caught the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple against his smooth throat.

‘Your father was in perfect health a few weeks ago,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Now, I’m no medical expert, but every case of Pyrrhoneuritis I’ve ever heard of has dragged on for months before it becomes debilitating. Whatever strain it was that took down your father so quickly is going to attract _a lot_ of interest in certain circles.’

Finally, the boy understood. He paled in the bright Georgia sun and speechlessly licked his lips in an anxious gesture that arrested Pike’s attention for an irrational moment before he scoffed and looked away.

‘Stupid child.’ Pike stalked swiftly around him, following the stone path away from the house. He heard the swift patter of Leonard’s shoes as he sprinted to catch up but didn’t bother to slow his pace for the boy.

‘You don’t get it,’ he said in a breathless rush. ‘He wasn’t going to let me enlist… I had to do something…’

‘No, you didn’t.’ Pike threw him a scathing glare. ‘Your father was nothing to the Empire, less than nothing to Starfleet. I could’ve stuffed you into a sack and dragged you off to the Academy right under his nose without anyone giving a shit about what he had to say about it.’

A hint of amusement broke the imploring urgency in Leonard’s eyes but it was the bleak fear lurking there that gradually slowed Pike’s footsteps. ‘Would you have wanted to steal me away if I couldn’t be a doctor anymore?’

Confusion drew Pike to a standstill on the manicured path. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I know Starfleet’s physical requirements, I know there’s no allowance for deformity or disability or…’ Leonard’s nonsensical babble trailed off with a shuddering shake of his head. ‘And I couldn’t be any sort of doctor, in Starfleet or anywhere, not without my hands… I couldn’t let him…’

Leonard’s hollow panic made something in Pike’s chest twist. ‘Are you saying he threatened you?’ he asked, low and calm as he could manage.

‘Amputation,’ he confirmed, eyes fixed on his slightly shaking hands. Pike stared down as well, taking in smooth skin and beautifully nimble fingers with a swell of unfamiliar sickness. He had inflicted far greater cruelties on others himself, but something in that calculated atrocity against one so… useful triggered a secret and disturbed nerve at Pike’s core.

‘He wouldn’t have dared,’ Pike said firmly. ‘He wanted to scare you, that’s all.’ His sensible tone was crafted to push Leonard’s delusional fear aside, but he merely shook his head with a small, bitter laugh.

‘He started with my arms,’ he said. ‘The day after you came with my papers. He said it was a warning, to show me how easily he could take away what he’d given me at birth…’ Leonard unconsciously rubbed his right forearm through the concealing sleeve of his shirt. ‘I hadn’t been to a hospital before that,’ he added sullenly, ducking his head. ‘But I couldn’t hold the osteoregenerator myself, not with both arms broken…’

‘You have your own osteoregenerator?’ Pike gaped at him, hands carefully clenched at his sides.

‘Grandpapa left me all his instruments,’ he said, some of his usual pride reasserting itself over the strange withdrawal. ‘They’re old, but they come in handy. Or, I guess…’ A wistful smile tugged at his full lips. ‘They came in handy, before. Won’t need them so much now.’

Biting hard on his tongue, Pike scrutinized the lavish McCoy home down the path, deflecting his eye elsewhere while his mind raced to assemble the pieces of Leonard’s confessions. For all his soft-hearted distaste for the Empire, David McCoy had clearly maintained sufficient fear within his own house to make Leonard believe in his irrational threats. Not that any child did well being reared without punishment, but Pike was beginning to suspect that discipline in the McCoy household had involved more than the usual impersonal training by agonizer.

The visceral confusion of emotions that slammed through him at the thought did not bear entertaining any further. With a disgusted shake of his head, he looked away from the house and kept walking towards the stables, unsurprised to hear Leonard fall into step at his side again.

‘I’m not sorry for what I did,’ he insisted, quietly defiant. Nothing in his tone begged Pike’s compassion or forgiveness; it was a simple statement of fact.

‘Neither am I.’ The agreement dropped off his tongue without conscious thought, startling him with his own mindless sincerity. When Leonard shot him an incandescent smile, he was helpless to do more than nod in return, reeling internally at his unspeakable loss of control. He steeled his heart as they neared the stables; no matter his own unpredictable impulses, the boy needed to face the consequences of his reckless behaviour.

He seized his opportunity as soon as the cool darkness of the stable’s interior had enveloped them both, catching Leonard unprepared from behind with an elbow locked around his throat, his other hand catching the arm that dared to rise against him. Pike twisted the offending limb up between their entangled bodies, grinning savagely at the pleasing arch of Leonard’s body, the startled cry that escaped his constricted throat.

‘Why would I be sorry for your stupid, short-sighted bullshit,’ he hushed coldly, ‘when it gives me an excuse to do this?’

Biting his way from ear to shoulder, Pike ground his hips into the curve of Leonard’s ass, making the full force of his erection felt before throwing him aside with a forceful shove as Leonard began to roll backward into his thrusts. His narrowed eyes tracked the tumble of his coltish limbs as he landed with a grunt against the low door of an empty stall. Distant whinnies and huffs of horses deeper in the stable echoed at the impact of flesh against wood, but Pike ignored their protests as he advanced on the younger man’s crumpled shape, pulling a blade from the shaft of his boot.

‘What’re you gonna do to me?’ Despite the humble hush of his voice, Leonard’s eyes flashed daringly from behind the tangle of his hair, his legs sprawling instinctively apart as Pike closed in.

‘Nothing you don’t deserve,’ he growled impatiently. Bending down, he grabbed a handful of Leonard’s shirt and sliced it apart with a stroke of his knife that rapidly exposed tanned skin and a thin line of blood welling from the too-close tip of his blade. Drawing heated breaths through clenched teeth, Pike tore the rest of the shirt away with his hands, relishing the ruin of the expensive cloth before backing away. ‘Clothes off,’ he barked, shaking fingers tightening around his knife. ‘Now.’

He left Leonard wide-eyed and fumbling his way out of his pants and shoes and paced the walls of the stable, his expert eye taking inventory of the tack at his disposal. Leather bridles and reins hung among shining steel bits, offering countless possibilities for improvisation that dissolved at the sight of dangling cuffs that were never designed with any horse in mind. A smirk spread slow across his lips as Pike plucked his find out from among the usual riding accoutrements, along with a couple sets of reins and lead ropes.

‘This is a pleasant surprise.’ He dangled the heavy leather cuffs from their short length of chain, clocking the recognition in Leonard’s face with a narrowed eye. ‘Did Daddy use these on you?’

A shudder of disgust slammed down the arousal heating Leonard’s gaze. ‘No,’ he spat mulishly, hands twisted in the puddle of discarded clothes beneath his naked legs. ‘Father never came out here. Didn’t like the smell.’

‘Is that so.’ He inhaled the miasma of damp straw, manure and horseflesh surrounding them; the mingled scents were musky, dirty, appropriate. Pike dropped his lengths of leather and rope to the hay-strewn floor and focused on the shining buckles beneath his fingers. ‘I’m sure you spend all sorts of time down here, though.’

‘Sure.’ The upward jut of Leonard’s jaw begged for a slap; Pike delivered it swiftly.

‘And not on your own, I’m guessing.’ Still crouched down over Leonard’s recoiling form, he grabbed the closest wrist and forced it into one of the cuffs, pulling the buckle tight. ‘Who were you with?’

Leonard glowered up at him from beneath heavy eyebrows. ‘How many names d’you want?’ he drawled, a hint of amusement twitching at the corner of his mouth before Pike smacked it away with another hard backhand.

‘ _Slut_.’ He dropped to his knees, pinning Leonard down as he twisted his other hand into the second cuff. With a sharp, possessive tug at the short chain between, he leaned down into the boy’s defiant face. ‘Every damned stable hand and muckraker your mama ever hired, was it?’

‘I took my riding lessons here.’ The tip of a pink tongue dragged over his lips, deliberately and unsubtly obscene. ‘I was a very enthusiastic pupil, Sir.’

Juvenile though it was, the unschooled tease snapped Pike’s last thread of control, launched him forward with a bestial hunger that devoured Leonard’s insouciant mouth while his free hand clawed blindly for the discarded ropes on the stone floor. The metal ring of the stall’s latch provided a convenient anchor for tying the boy’s hands high above his head but even the tight twist of the rope’s excess length down his forearms left Pike’s roaring need for dominance unsatisfied. With a seething snarl, he manhandled Leonard over onto his knees, wrenching his shoulders and forcing him to bend into the leather reins he pulled taut around his body, calves folded tight to thighs spread wide beneath him. His cock was already filling out with unmistakable arousal, and Pike whispered cruel taunts in his ear as he reached down between his legs and blindly bound the squeezed handful of his penis and balls into a cage of leather knots. If Leonard were to come at all this time, it would be at his command alone.

‘Would you learn your lesson if I just left you like this?’ he wondered out loud, groping Leonard’s captive genitals and slipping further back to tap against his tight hole. ‘Or would you think it a reward for bad behaviour, getting fucked by any stable hands who may wander in while I sit back and watch you take it like a dirty little bitch?’

Leonard answered with a wordless whine that gave blindingly visceral form to the rampant fantasy roiling in Pike’s mind. He knew he had chosen well to leave his victim ungagged.

‘That’s what I thought.’ Momentarily entranced, he raked his eyes over the trembling stretch of the body before him from the upward strain on his arms to the offering of his parted buttocks. ‘I own you now, boy,’ he said, softly triumphant with a stinging slap to that vulnerable ass as he rose to his feet. ‘I own you, and I’m going to show you what happens when you pull foolish stunts without my permission.’

The riding crop felt small and ineffective in his hand, so Pike soon traded it for a longer horsewhip that laid lyrical red lines across Leonard’s back and pulled delicious gasps from his mouth with every strike. Leonard didn’t shout or scream through his beating, restraining his reactions to startled little sounds that leapt like staccato notes against the ragged thrum of his heavy breathing, of Pike’s heavy breathing. Addictive though those soft cries were, Pike narrowed his eyes and focused his hand, laying the whip across areas already welted with abuse and avidly drinking in every flinch of Leonard’s straining shoulders, every tight hitch of his breathing.

In some feverish corner of his mind, Pike wondered how any rational man could look upon this tormented boy and dream of anything as vile as amputating so much as a hangnail’s worth of his beauty.

The next greedy fall of his whip wrenched a loud sob from Leonard’s throat. Growling with possessive triumph, Pike swung again with a resounding crack and Leonard wailed, a broken cry descending into softer sobs that he attempted to muffle into his upper arm.

Pike tilted his head to the side as he watched, gathering the whip into a tidy coil in his hand before leaning down and wrenching Leonard’s head back by his sweat-damp hair. His eyes were shut, the thick clumping of his eyelashes casting long shadows against the gleaming tracks coursing his cheeks and soaking his panting lips. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered breathlessly, snuffling wetly as he forced the words out. ‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry… please…’

‘Shhh…’ Pike didn’t know where this soft, soothing noise was coming from but he let it fall from his mouth all the same. Hooking the coiled whip around his fingers, he smudged a thumb up the side of Leonard’s wet face. ‘Shhh… there’s my good boy…’

‘I’m sorry…’ Beneath his tears, Pike saw his cheeks flush darker as he struggled to turn his head the other way. ‘Please… please, I’m sorry, but please… please, don’t stop…’

Pike frowned, winding his hand tighter into Leonard’s hair to keep his face exposed. ‘What are you sorry for?’ he asked quietly. His thumb slid further down Leonard’s cheek, testing the frustrated clenching of his jaw.

‘Sorry for crying,’ he ground out finally, brows furrowing as his face constricted with shame. ‘I can take it, really… I’m not weak, I’m _not_ …’

‘I know you’re not.’ Ignoring Leonard’s pleas, Pike threw the whip aside and wiped the tears from the other side of his face, followed them down to his scowling mouth. ‘Did I ever say you were?’

Eyes still screwed shut, Leonard shook his head, lips parting to draw in a quivering mouthful of air. Pike chased that unsteady breath with his salt-damp fingers, probing over his tongue until Leonard took the hint and began to lick and suckle at the offered digits.

‘My beautiful boy…’ He fucked Leonard’s red mouth leisurely with his fingers until they were slick with saliva and salty tears: far from adequate lubrication but if Leonard was so desperate to be punished it would do well enough. Skimming his touch briefly over his whipped back, Pike pushed the tips of two fingers into Leonard’s hole, kneading the welts on his ass with his other hand and marveling at the flesh tensing and slackening around his fingers with every torment coaxed from the younger man’s body. Pain seemed to open him more readily; Pike laid a sharp slap over his reddened ass, quickly inserted a third finger as Leonard bucked and moaned beneath him.

‘I know you can take anything I give you.’ Leonard moaned again at the simple praise, squirming onto his fingers as much as his tight bondage would allow. As breathtaking as the sight was, Pike ached to see more; seizing Leonard’s narrow hips, he flipped his body over to better admire his handiwork. His legs, each folded and tied with leather reins, fell helplessly to either side of Leonard’s torso, perfectly framing the knots trapping his cock and balls. Pike laid a heavy hand over his prize, squeezing hard to feel the blood engorging the flesh despite the constricting leather straps.

‘Please…’ Leonard stared down the taut length of his torso from beneath damp eyelashes, panting desperately at Pike fondled him with a slow reverence, petting his tight balls and teasing out the moisture weeping from the swollen tip of his cock. ‘Please… I’ll do anything you want, but _please…_ ’

‘No.’ He slipped his hand away, rubbing the scant pre-come on his fingers over his waiting hole instead. ‘Time to see how well you take what I won’t give you…’

Leonard groaned, a long and despairing sound but his head also fell forward in an assenting nod that made Pike’s breath catch in his throat. Suddenly, there was nothing so important in this world as the need to release his own trapped erection from his uniform pants and hastily slick himself with a sloppily licked palm. He took Leonard’s hips and hauled him into his lap, holding the boy suspended for an exquisite moment before lining himself up and forcing his way inside with sharp, insistent thrusts, tugging Leonard onto his dick as he surged forward.

‘Was he your first?’ He murmured the question over the wave of his pleasure as tight heat clenched around him. Leonard’s eyes shuddered open, confusion glistening through the glassy haze of his pain and arousal.

‘What…?’

‘Your father.’ Pike snapped his hips, groaned as he finally buried himself to the hilt and grinned into the disgust curling Leonard’s swollen mouth. ‘Was he the first man you killed?’ he clarified, diving in to nibble at his salt-stained lower lip. Leonard moaned into his bite, his clever tongue full of intent to make it something more but Pike pulled away, recognizing the diversion. ‘Was he?’

Leonard licked his lips, more from nervousness than lust. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted, so raw and vulnerable that Pike rewarded him with a deep roll of his hips. Eyes falling closed again, Leonard moaned and arched his back in a flawless bow of tension between his bound hands and his impaled ass, a rippling line that Pike chased with a drag of blunt fingernails over all that smooth skin. He rose up on his knees, skidding in the matted straw and groping onto Leonard’s buttocks as he set a harder, punishing rhythm.

‘Are you sorry yet?’ he growled, punching the question with his hips. Leonard gulped in a desperate mouthful of air, and when his eyes flickered open Pike was taken aback all over again by the sharp constellations of light he saw there.

‘No,’ he gasped out, the word hitching over an especially sharp thrust. ‘Never.’

That emphatic answer, so stubborn and fierce, deserved the kiss that Pike had denied him moments before. He shoved in with the full weight of his body, bruising Leonard’s spine and shoulders beneath his clawing fingers as he claimed a searing kiss, fucking Leonard’s gaping mouth in filthy-wet counterpoint to his cock. A whimpering moan answered him along with the sloppy tangle of Leonard’s tongue meeting his own with equal intensity. His bound legs flexed and closed trembling-tight around Pike’s waist, riding back against his thrusts with a squirming, fervent need that nearly overwhelmed him.

‘My brave boy… next time, I’ll be there with you,’ he promised fervently, clutching Leonard’s hips with bruising force as his orgasm neared. ‘I’ll tell you what to do… you’ll never have to do that alone, never again… never on your own…’

Impossibly, Leonard writhed closer into the rocking slide of his body, burying his face into a clothed shoulder with such blind affection that Pike needed to close his eyes to contain the flood of further nonsense threatening to spill from his mouth. He clenched his teeth, tried to focus on the rough friction of flesh and nothing else but then Leonard tipped his chin onto Pike’s tensed shoulder, murmured words so destructively sentimental that Pike swore he would banish them immediately from memory but that low, sex-drenched drawl of his was enough to push him irretrievably over the edge into roaring release.

Given the elated aftershocks of his orgasm, Pike hoped he could be forgiven for sinking down between Leonard’s thighs moments later, where he fumbled apart the knots constricting his cock and sucked him until he came messy and quick down his throat seconds later.

And when Leonard protested weakly at the chop of Pike’s knife through the lead rope anchoring his hands to the latch, he couldn’t be faulted for gathering the boy into his lap and cradling his bound body for however long it took for his inexplicable shaking to subside. He was an Imperial Commander, he reminded himself grimly, and would assert his power over this fledgling monster no matter how much his knees ached beneath their combined weight.

He was an Imperial Commander, and right now he had no idea which of them had just been more thoroughly fucked.

 

\+ + +

 

‘Christopher. What brings you here so…’ Boyce pursed his lips, repressing a smile, ‘voluntarily?’

Pike scowled as he jumped nimbly onto the edge of the biobed. ‘Find out for yourself,’ he said shortly. His anxious fingers found one of the bed’s restraints and tugged it absently while Boyce started his scan.

‘This would go a lot faster if you told me what I’m looking for.’

 _My damn common sense. Seem to have lost it, Doc._ ‘Foreign substances,’ Pike tried instead with a shrug. This was far from his field of expertise, and once again he cursed himself for not having thought to see Boyce sooner.

Boyce, meanwhile, quirked a graying eyebrow at his preliminary readings. ‘Well, your blood alcohol level certainly defies reason.’

‘Does it?’ Pike tilted his head, glancing up at his oldest ally and friend. ‘Maybe I should have words with my physician about lowering my dosage.’ He smirked at Boyce’s deep chuckle, relaxed slightly as the scanner continued to circle into his personal space.

‘Oh, _hello._ ’ Boyce drew back, manipulated a few controls on his tricorder, and whistled low. ‘Orion, even? My goodness, Chris, I thought you were off that wagon now.’

‘It wasn’t a damn Orion,’ he snapped impatiently.

‘Apparently not.’ The doctor’s reply was absent, absorbed as he was in his tricorder readings. ‘No, it looks like something a lot more complex… dare I say, a fine piece of work, whomever he was… or she?’ Boyce glanced up at Pike, eyes twinkling.

Pike pressed his lips together. ‘He,’ he admitted finally.

‘Well, _he_ is quite the ingenious son of a bitch.’ Admiration warmed Boyce’s voice as he transferred his readings to his computer console and brought up a visual schematic that was incomprehensible to Pike’s eye but which Boyce greeted with a broad grin. ‘Oh, would you look at _that_.’

‘Before you ask it out for a drink and a fuck,’ Pike interrupted dryly, ‘maybe you can see about getting it the hell out of my body?’

‘Are you joking?’ Boyce snorted, shook his head. ‘Chris, this compound didn’t come off any shelf I’ve ever seen. No, _this_ was crafted by hand, and broke half the rules along the way. It’ll take me weeks to come up with a counter-agent, though we might speed that up if you tell me which of my esteemed colleagues was responsible.’ Another smile brightened his sharp features. ‘I owe the man a drink and a handshake before destroying his fine work.’

‘It’s no one you know, Phil.’ His eyes dropped down to the restraining belt under his fingers. ‘And most would hesitate to call him a man just yet.’

Boyce shot him a confused look over his shoulder, lips pursed with an unspoken question. Stubbornly, Pike glared back, tried not to wince when Boyce’s eyes widened with understanding.

‘I heard you were at the Savannah McCoys for their Derby party,’ he said slowly. Pike shrugged.

‘I like horses.’

‘Oh, I _know_ what you like.’ Boyce made a rude scoffing sound as he turned back to his console. ‘David McCoy’s boy, I presume? I’ve heard stories out of Ole Miss…’ He looked around again, eyebrows raised. ‘I don’t suppose… that case of sudden-onset Pyrrhoneuritis…?’

A flutter of pride beat errantly in Pike’s chest. ‘Too close to telling, Phil,’ he said instead, repressing a smirk as Boyce whistled low.

‘Sure explains a thing or two about this piece of work.’ Boyce aimed a slower glance over his readings. ‘I’ll tell you this much, the boy has a real talent… and not just for sucking cock,’ he added with an exasperated smile.

‘Contrary to where your dirty old mind is no doubt wandering even as we speak,’ he interrupted coolly, ‘I didn’t enlist him in the Academy to suck cock.’ _Well, not entirely,_ his libidinous side added unhelpfully.

‘You enlisted him?’

‘He’ll arrive end of next week.’ Pike squinted at Boyce’s hunched shoulders. ‘You sound surprised.’

‘He’ll be medical track.’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed slowly.

‘And you’re no medic.’ Boyce stood from his console and leaned back against his desk, arms crossed over his chest. ‘You’re up to something.’

Pike tilted his head to the side, concealing his confusion in a neutral frown. ‘I recruited a brilliant young medical prodigy into the Fleet,’ he said in a measured tone. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘Nope.’ Irritation sliced its way through Boyce’s amiable face. ‘You’ve had no interest in Medical until now, and you’re getting too old to be making decisions with your cock alone. So what the hell is going through that fine strategist’s brain of yours?’

He posed the question with a twinkle that forgave his earlier frustration, but the asking only aggravated the anxiety creeping down the back of Pike’s neck when an answer failed to spring to mind. ‘I didn’t come here to talk strategy, Phil,’ he snapped evasively. ‘I came here for medical advice.’ He slid off the biobed, straightening to his full height. ‘The Orion compound. Can you neutralize it?’

Boyce shrugged. ‘Not without extensive analysis and experimentation. Maybe in a couple weeks I’ll have something that will do the trick, but for the time being…’

‘Fine.’ The smile that strained his lips was a thing of necessity, nothing more. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said by way of farewell, landing a friendly slap on Boyce’s upper arm as he passed him on his way out.

‘Should I get to work, then?’ Boyce called after him with a dry indifference that made Pike’s smile widen in earnest.

‘No, forget it,’ he assured, pausing in the exam room’s threshold to glance reassuringly back at his friend. ‘I’ll handle this one myself.’

 

\+ + +

The rasp of his antique straight razor against the strip of leather hanging by his bathroom sink soothed Pike’s frayed nerve endings and kept his attention away from the chronometer. Even when absorbed in his shaving preparations, he didn’t need to check the time to know that the shuttle winging the latest recruits to the Academy had landed just over an hour ago.

Not that the arrival of that shuttle had anything to do with his decision to shave in the middle of the afternoon. Nothing at all.

Pike blew out a rough breath and shoved his frustration into the rigorous lathering of soap at the end of his bristle brush. The routine for new arrivals was one he knew well; there were forms to fill, loyalty oaths to swear, measurements and medical exams both crudely administered before the cadets were unleashed upon the campus to make their way to assigned quarters or commitments elsewhere.

Arriving at one’s destination in one piece was, of course, the final hurdle of any cadet’s induction into Starfleet.

His mind chewed at the thought while his hands and eyes remained fixed on the path his razor’s honed edge curved along his jaw. Leonard was a devious creature, but the savagery of Academy cadets did not come naturally to him. And whether Leonard could defend himself against knife-eager cadets was of little consequence when Pike had yet to decide what to do with him when, and if, he arrived at his doorstep.

He doused his anxiety with handfuls of warm water that dashed the last of the foam from his face. Reaching blindly, he snatched a towel from the rail and daubed at the water sluicing down his neck and down his bare chest, sinking to the edge of his bathtub with a low groan.

Staring into the sleek and empty tub, he mulled over his first night with young Leonard, in the hours after that impulsive tryst in the woods beyond the garden. Pike had left the young man in no fit state to rejoin his parents’ party, he recalled fondly; decorum had made it more prudent to escort Leonard unobserved up to his room and tie him down to the bed for safekeeping until the guests had dispersed. The delicious picture he had made, stripped of his ruined suit and bound to the posts of his antique bed, had kept Pike distractingly semi-erect for the duration of the party, scarcely able to bid his hosts goodnight for all his desire to debauch their son’s lithe body all over again.

Spilling his drug-fuelled lust into Leonard’s body for a third time had done little to slake his thirst for the infuriating creature. The blade in his boot had quickly freed his coltish legs but Pike had left the knotted red tie around his wrists, using it like a lead to haul Leonard into the en-suite bath. The boy had been too fucked out to need restraint but, as Pike recalled with a glance to his own towel rail, he had made a beautiful diversion while waiting for the antique tub to fill, squirming helplessly as Pike had tormented his captive’s well-used hole with four plunging fingers.

Pike dropped his towel on the bathroom floor and pressed his palm over the erection filling his black boxer briefs. Now was not the time to indulge his dirty memories, not when he needed to gather his wits around Leonard’s potentially imminent arrival. The only part of that night worth revisiting was the image of Leonard’s reckless trust, eyes closed and a smile on his ravished lips while Pike had sponged scented water over Leonard’s pliant body, washing away the remains of the forest and their sex.

It would have been so easy back then to slap the washcloth over the boy’s nose and mouth, to shove him underwater and hold him there until he drowned.

He would have done it, if only Leonard hadn’t withheld the antidote he needed to save his manhood and his sanity. So he had waited, indulged the boy and his own lust until they had reached the moment of Leonard’s choosing, now fast approaching.

_‘And I suppose you have a schedule in place for dispensing those other two doses?’ He reluctantly bared his throat, accepting the hypospray’s brief sting._

_‘One in good faith,’ Leonard straddled his lap with a slinking shimmy of hips. ‘Another when you deliver my enlistment papers – in person, of course. You get the last dose once I’m officially enrolled in the Medical track.’_

His skin was growing cold from the bathroom tiles at his back. Leaning down, he stopped the drain and set the bath water running hot before rising decisively to his feet.

Pike stood before the full-length mirror of his adjoining bedroom as he dressed in the unforgiving black of his Commander’s uniform, boots polished to a shine that matched the standard blade he strapped smartly to his hip. He flexed his hands and ran his fingers through the unruly wave of his hair, briefly considering the standard-issue black gloves he kept for certain diplomatic occasions before dismissing the idea.

When he saw Leonard again, he would touch him with his bare hands. He owed himself that scrap of pleasure at least.

The chime at his door startled Pike out of his self-assessing fugue. With a last check in the mirror, he set a measured pace to his front door, deliberately drawing out his visitor’s wait before granting him entry. He activated the outside surveillance camera and looked to the small screen beneath the security panel; it would do Leonard good to wait awhile longer, and the camera would allow him a last lingering view of the young man, a rare and unguarded indulgence.

The monitor flickered to life; Pike sucked in a harsh breath and slammed his palm onto the lock panel a scant second later.

‘Hello, Commander.’ Leonard’s smile was sweetly charming in spite of his split and bleeding mouth. A second wound high on his forehead clumped the messy strands of his long hair and trailed blood in smeared rivulets down the side of his face to the high collar of a new uniform that already looked like it had seen years of rough use. The spatters of fresh blood were difficult to see against the crimson fabric but it seeped wetly against Pike’s hand when he dragged Leonard inside with a firm grip on his arm.

‘Who did this?’ he snapped sharply, turning Leonard abruptly until he stood beneath the nearest overhead light. He took Leonard’s bruised jaw in his fingers, tilting his head back to better assess the damage to his face.

‘Strangely enough, they didn’t bother to introduce themselves.’ His sarcastic drawl was thickened by his swollen lip; Pike swept a thumb over the injured flesh, letting the intimate contact settle the impulses storming at the back of his mind. ‘Won’t be forgetting their faces anytime soon, though,’ he added darkly.

‘More than one?’

‘Four,’ he confirmed, and Pike bit back an indignant growl. With such uneven odds, Leonard was lucky to have made it to his door in one piece.

‘Where else are you hurt?’ he asked abruptly, snatching his hand away from Leonard’s face and stepping back to scrutinize his stained uniform. Some of the blood, he realized with a start, was not human.

‘I’m fine, really.’ Leonard unshouldered his duffle to the floor and set a smaller medical case on a nearby table with far greater care. ‘A few bumps and bruises, nothing worse than what those four are dealing with now.’ Blood-stained fingers snapped the case open and Pike watched as Leonard extracted two long-bladed antique scalpels, a hypospray and a handful of depleted vials from the sleeves and pockets of his uniform. Pike wet his suddenly dry lips, eyes narrowed on nimble hands sorting his things with such a strange blend of cool efficiency and slow affection.

‘I assume you have something for me in there.’

Leonard’s bright eyes flicked sideways so rapidly that their narrow look caught Pike momentarily off-guard. ‘Course I do,’ he agreed, turning back to his case and selecting a loaded hypo. Pike held his breath as Leonard checked the vial’s contents then exhaled his surprise at the hypo’s sting to his throat seconds later. Fingers flying to touch the spot above his uniform’s collar, he stared into Leonard’s quietly pleased eyes and waited for any unusual reactions to set in but as the seconds ticked onward he felt no different than he had with the previous two doses.

Without even a word of negotiation or delay, the impossible child had simply given him the complete antidote.

The snap of Leonard’s medical kit falling shut awoke Pike from his shock. He snatched his fingers away from his throat and seized Leonard with a tight grip around his wrist, dragging him through the spartan spaces of his apartment, his blood racing eagerly at the boy’s lack of resistance.

‘We need to get you out of those filthy clothes,’ he murmured. Pike brought them to a halt by his bedroom mirror, meeting his own chilled gaze as he nuzzled the scent of blood wafting from Leonard’s throat. ‘I’ve got a nice hot bath ready for you.’

‘Really?’ A bright note of surprise warmed Leonard’s reply. ‘How’d you know I’d need it?’

Pike ignored him, already absorbed in the fastenings of his soiled uniform. Heavy red fabric parted beneath his fingers as Pike peeled away each piece of clothing, stroking every smooth plane of flesh he found beneath. The mirror and his own gaze found the occasional evidence of combat that would, if given time, turn to ugly bruises but his skin was otherwise unbroken over his lithe body. He knelt as briefly as he could to remove Leonard’s pants, boots and socks but couldn’t resist passing a reverent hand up the boy’s thigh and over the curve of his ass before he rose back up to his feet. Leonard was already purring beneath his touch, utterly unguarded in his pleasure.

The boy’s rash ignorance simmered his blood in time to his lust. Somehow, it had never occurred to Leonard that he could have had Pike, could have had _anything_ he wanted without the use of drugs or blackmail. If Leonard’s self-awareness and confidence ever caught up with the raw potential of his sensuality and intelligence, he could become a truly dangerous force in the Empire.

His resolve hardened by that knowledge, Pike pulled back from where he had been absorbed in tasting the soft skin of his throat, taking him with a more impersonal grip on his forearm.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Before the water goes cold.’

If Leonard found the statement odd in light of the taps still running hot into the tub, he chose not to comment, waiting silently while Pike shut the valves and pretended to test the temperature. The bath, he noted with a small frown, was not completely filled but the water would be deep enough for his need.

‘What, no bubbles?’ Leonard smiled ironically as he stepped willingly into the water and eased his way down, but Pike scowled back.

‘The Academy is an austere sort of place,’ he said grimly, shoving the sleeves of his uniform up his tensing forearms. ‘You’re a long way from Savannah now.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’ A soft, endearing groan rumbled from Leonard’s long throat as he sank back in the water and tilted his head to wet his hair. Thin tendrils of blood rippled pink across the water’s steaming surface like a halo lapping at the shore of his battered face. Swallowing hard, Pike averted his gaze and searched for a washcloth.

‘This reminds me of the night of my parents’ party,’ he continued lazily, craning his head out of the water. ‘You bathed me then, too, remember?’

‘Yeah.’ Pike sat gingerly on the tub’s edge, gaze submerged in the water around Leonard’s midsection. Blood and bruises aside, he looked so pristine beneath the clear water. ‘You reeked of sex.’

Leonard chuckled brightly. ‘Freedom, too.’

‘There’s no freedom here for you.’ He immersed the washcloth, wrung it full of heavy water. When he dragged his eyes back up to Leonard’s face, he was relieved to see his childish smile faded into a more appropriate solemnity.

‘I know,’ he said quietly, chewing briefly at his broken lip. ‘There’s no freedom for any of us, anywhere in this world… but I think I’m a lot closer to it, with you…’

Pike scoffed his discomfort at Leonard’s earnest words. ‘What, when I’ve got you tied up and at my mercy?’ he teased darkly. The cloth thoroughly soaked, he leaned in and daubed at the cut at Leonard’s hairline.

‘Especially then.’ Pike wiped down the side of Leonard’s face to the corner of his shyly smiling mouth, nearly close enough to smother his breath. Slowly, he unbraced his other arm from the far edge of the tub, fingertips trailing a diversion across his victim’s chest and startling with a warm hand caught his own from beneath the water.

‘Thank you,’ Leonard murmured. His sweet mouth curved with a sinister edge, and with a tug of his hand the world toppled sideways.

Balance lost, Pike tumbled into the water with a gasping sputter for air, grappling on instinct to recover control from the tangle of naked limbs into which he had fallen. Water already soaked his uniform through to the skin, and Pike angrily shook droplets from his hair as he pushed up against Leonard’s body and glared murderously into his mutely laughing face.

‘You fucking _brat_.’ The amusement in Leonard’s eyes melted on a low moan as Pike trapped his wrists against the bottom of the tub and stilled the thrashing of his lithe body with a shove of his hips down between his thighs. After an experimental struggle, Leonard went still beneath him, beautifully submissive save for the dare sharpening his blindingly bright eyes.

‘What’re you gonna do to me?’ he asked, all feigned innocence and sinful mouth that begged to be devoured at the points of Pike’s teeth. Diving in, he snapped at that false pout and shivered at the cry he won for his pains.

‘Have you,’ he growled. ‘However the hell I want.’ Stealing a kiss wet with water and blood, Pike willfully and recklessly let himself drown.


End file.
